Bell, Mozelle

ORAL HISTORY OF MOZELLE RANKIN BELL
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
October 17, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview has been scheduled through the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is October 17th, 2012, and I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of Mozelle Bell, 132 Westlook Circle, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take her oral history about her life in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Thank you, Mrs. Bell for your time to be interviewed.
MRS. BELL: You’re welcome.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Please state your name, place of birth, and date of birth, please.
MRS. BELL: My name is Mozelle Rankin Bell. I was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on February 3, 1924.
MR. HUNNICUTT: May I call you Mozelle?
MRS. BELL: Yes, that is fine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your father’s name, Mozelle?
MRS. BELL: His name was Arthur Eldridge Rankin. Everyone called him “KT” because he worked for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, MK&T.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where he was born and a little bit about his family?
MRS. BELL: Yes, if I think about it. He was born in, probably in the country in Erath County, Texas.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother? What was her maiden name?
MRS. BELL: Her maiden name was Robertson. Her name was Georgie Fay Robertson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And was she also born in Texas?
MRS. BELL: Yes, she was. She was born in, I believe in…the name Strawn comes to my mind.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how your parents met each other?
MRS. BELL: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned sisters. How many sisters do you have?
MRS. BELL: I had two older sisters, both of whom are gone now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were their names?
MRS. BELL: My older sister was Margaret Fern. My next sister was Erma Maurine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is the age difference between you and your sisters?
MRS. BELL: A lot. I think between me and Margaret was sixteen years and between me and Maurine was fourteen years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, after you were born, how long did you live at the place of your birth?
MRS. BELL: Well, not in the same house continuously, but I lived in Fort Worth—I was born in the house we lived in, in Fort Worth. There was a short period of time, when for a reason I don’t quite remember, we lived for a couple of years with my grandmother, who also lived in Fort Worth, and then we moved back to the old house where I was born.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That included your sisters?
MRS. BELL: Yes, most of the time. They were quite a bit older than me. So, after they graduated from TCU [Texas Christian University], they both got jobs teaching, and a good part of the time they were out of town. I had one…my older sister Margaret taught in a little town called Lyford, Texas. It is found in the Rio Grande Valley. That is where she began. My other sister, Maurine, I think began teaching in Quanah, Texas, which is an old Indian name. It is north and a little west of Fort Worth, I guess. Q-U-A-N-A-H. Quanah, Texas.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the first school that you attended.
MRS. BELL: Ok. I went to…they had kindergarten then. I went to kindergarten in a school named Lily B. Clayton. For some reason, I remember that name. Lily B. Clayton, I went to Kindergarten through... I guess it was sixth grade then in grade school. That was in Fort Worth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then you went to…
MRS. BELL: Went to junior high in Fort Worth, went to high school in Fort Worth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: While you were in high school, did you belong to any clubs or any organizations?
MRS. BELL: That’s hard to remember. I probably belonged to a club that had something to do with mathematics because I was interested in it in those days, years. I don’t remember. I don’t think high school clubs were very important then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you consider yourself a good student?
MRS. BELL: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you know what you wanted to do with your life after you graduated or when you were a senior, or before?
MRS. BELL: Not really, but those were the days women were supposed to graduate and if they went to college, they got a job teaching because that was about all you could do.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what did you do?
MRS. BELL: Well, I went to TCU, which was in Fort Worth. That’s maybe better known now. The football team has gotten better. Texas Christian University. I lived at home. I was on the bus line to go to TCU. Let’s see…what was I interested in? Well, I was interested in mathematics because I had been good in math in high school. I worked part of the time. When I was going to TCU, they had student assistants in the office of the department to help the other students do their homework. I did that in the math department.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you graduated from high school and went to TCU. Did you graduate with a teacher’s degree?
MRS. BELL: No. I think because I really didn’t want to teach that I never took any education courses. So, I had a degree in… I might have had a double major in math and chemistry, but I didn’t want to teach. I graduated, well, I went to school during World War II essentially. I entered TCU in the fall of 1941, before December 7, 1941. So that really changed everything about college life then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When your mother was raising her family, did she ever work?
MRS. BELL: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Stay at home mom?
MRS. BELL: Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your father was the only one that worked?
MRS. BELL: Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you got out of college and then… Tell me a little bit more of what happened then.
MRS. BELL: When I graduated from college, I got an offer to be, I guess you call it student assistant or something, at Ohio State.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you work there?
MRS. BELL: I worked there…I got a Master’s degree from there and a little bit more. I was there maybe four years, something like that. I remember a recruiter from Oak Ridge came to interview students. Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the recruiter asked?
MRS. BELL: I really don’t recall what he asked, but I didn’t like the winters in Columbus and he said, “Oh, Tennessee that is south”. When I was living in Columbus, I had a friend, I’ve have lost track of now, who was from Chattanooga. I thought, well that is near Chattanooga and I can see her. I was happy to come back south.
MR. HUNNICUTT: At that time, did you have an automobile?
MRS. BELL: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you travel?
MRS. BELL: By railroad. My father worked for the railroad and I got passes on the railroad.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After the gentleman from Oak Ridge came and you got to thinking about maybe coming to Oak Ridge, how did you pursue that?
MRS. BELL: I don’t know that I did anything. They made me an offer to come and work here and I said, “Yes”.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what was the job offer?
MRS. BELL: I was trying to remember that. I think the title of the job was probably physicist because they didn’t have mathematicians in 1948. I think it was physicist.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You decided to come to Oak Ridge and take this job?
MRS. BELL: Um huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, how did you? You got on the train I presume and you went from…
MRS. BELL: I went from Fort Worth, I guess I had gone home to Fort Worth and when I took the job I got on the train in Fort Worth and ended up in Knoxville at the train depot over there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what instructions you were given on how to get to Oak Ridge from Knoxville?
MRS. BELL: I remember that they told me they had a room reserved in a hotel in Knoxville. I think it was the Andrew Johnson, but I am not sure about that. That is where they sort of put up people who were coming to go to work so I spent the first night in the Andrew Johnson and then the next day, I remember, they came in a car or something and took me out. They took me to Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you just had a suitcase in hand?
MRS. BELL: That’s about what it was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They brought a car from Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: They brought some kind of car but, I don’t remember what kind.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall when you came to Oak Ridge where you entered the city?
MRS. BELL: Well the gates were closed then and so…no, I don’t remember which gate. It seems to me…I really don’t remember which gate. It is, was, Elza but I don’t think we came in Elza. I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you say in the city the gates were closed, tell me a little bit about what you mean by that.
MRS. BELL: You had to have a pass. Everyone had to have a pass to get into Oak Ridge at that time. I suppose they brought me a temporary pass when they came to pick me to take me here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the date when that was?
MRS. BELL: I remember pretty closely. It was September. I’m not sure…September 26 or 28, 1948.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when they met you at the gate, and they put you in the car, where did you go from the gate entrance?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember. I think we went to Y-12 then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: But you went straight to the job site first?
MRS. BELL: It seems to me we did, but I am not sure. Maybe they said, “Ok, we have reserved a room for you in Bayonne Hall.” I only spent that one night in Knoxville and then I came back.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when you got to the gate, they gave you badge?
MRS. BELL: A pass.
MR. HUNNICUTT: A pass and escorted you to the job site. Do you recall what happened at the job site on that particular first day?
MRS. BELL: I remember...it is sort of mixed up in my mind…I remember being interviewed for this job by Ed Shipley. I can’t remember whether this was before, seems to me that it should have been before I was hired. I don’t really have the sequence of events there. I remember being interviewed by him.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how you got from the job site to your room--to where you were going to live?
MRS. BELL: On the bus. We rode the bus from Bus Terminal Road.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was Baymont Hall?
MRS. BELL: It was Bayonne.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bayonne. That was a dormitory?
MRS. BELL: It was a dormitory. It is where that tall building is in Jackson square now. The dormitories were sort of U shaped…one here, one here, and Bayonne here. It was the crossbar on the U.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe your dormitory room.
MRS. BELL: Small. There is still one or two…there is an old dormitory here now out on the east side of town, close to the Glenwood Church, I guess is out there. People, maybe the church does it, I think. Anyway, you can donate articles, beds, articles of furniture and people can go in there and if they are looking for something, I was looking for a wheelchair for my husband, I think. I went there and went into that dormitory and I remembered all these dormitories were so small.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So describe what was in the room.
MRS. BELL: It seems to me they had several rooms and maybe bedding and maybe they had some single beds. It was sort of a junk room, really. You had to look through for what you were…
MR. HUNNICUTT: Like a typical dormitory would be at the college?
MRS. BELL: Oh, you mean my dormitory room?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes, what your dormitory room?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember much about it. It was a bed, and I think the bathroom was down the hall.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a roommate?
MRS. BELL: No. I think they were just single. Seems to me, those rooms were just for one person. I am not sure.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you had to go down the hall to use the bathroom and the shower?
MRS. BELL: I think that is right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about was the room warm in the winter time and hot in the summer time?
MRS. BELL: Yes. I don’t remember being uncomfortable. I don’t remember the temperature being a problem, so I guess the place was heated well enough in the winter time. I had not been used to air conditioning. I remember, this is interesting. Y-12 did not have any air conditioning then. When I started working in ’48, no air conditioning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Air conditioning then might have been a rare thing in those days.
MRS. BELL: I guess it was. I had grown up in Texas and I was used to the weather being hot and it didn’t bother me too much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you lived in the dormitory, where did you go for your meals?
MRS. BELL: That is interesting. There was a cafeteria right across the street. I don’t remember its name. Central probably, it was on Central Avenue. Central Cafeteria, and then before too long there was the Mayflower, which was across the street from the, well there was a dormitory here and there was the efficiency apartments and across the street was a restaurant. It was the Mayflower for a long time. It is a parking lot now, I think.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that in the Townsite area?
MRS. BELL: It was in the Townsite.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What we call Jackson Square now?
MRS. BELL: It was in Jackson Square, probably across the street from what you would call Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that the main source of your eating?
MRS. BELL: That was it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Those two facilities?
MRS. BELL: That was it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you rode the bus back and forth to work each day?
MRS. BELL: Um huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you work shift work?
MRS. BELL: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were your hours? Do you remember what time you were supposed to be at work?
MRS. BELL: No, I don’t know. Seems to me it was eight to four thirty, something like that. I never worked shift.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about riding the bus. Was it crowded?
MRS. BELL: It was crowded, always. But, well you know, nobody thought that was anything unusual. That is just the way people got around Oak Ridge those days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to pay a fare to ride the bus?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember. It must have been pretty minimal. I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ride the bus to go to other parts of the town, or did you walk, or did you have someone that had a car by any chance?
MRS. BELL: I think I probably walked if I went any place. I can’t remember when but sometime early in the time that I was in Oak Ridge, I managed to get a car. I had a cousin who had an auto dealership in Midland, Texas, and he managed to get me a Chevy and somehow got that car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you still living in the dorm when you got your car?
MRS. BELL: I don’t know. I think I might have upgraded to the efficiency apartments, which you know next door to the dormitory. I can’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall mud throughout the city?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember a lot of mud. I have heard people, my friends talk about that there was a lot of mud here, but I don’t remember that. I guess there was, but I don’t recall that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So after you lived in the dormitory, where did you go after that?
MRS. BELL: I got this upgrade to the efficiency apartments. Which they were one room too but they had one room and a bathroom and little place you could cook, I guess, a sink anyway. They were small.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How were you able to do that?
MRS. BELL: I guess at that time, you sort of put in to… who was the housing company? I don’t remember if it was… or R.L. Moore or something like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Roane-Anderson?
MRS. BELL: Roane Anderson was the housing company and maybe you just put in a request that you would like to move when something else became available.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Other than your personal belongings you brought in your suitcase, is that all you moved from the dormitory?
MRS. BELL: That’s all. That’s all.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to pay rent at the particular time?
MRS. BELL: I guess I did. I don’t remember, but I surely did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I have heard that people that lived in the dorms had maid service. Do you recall that?
MRS. BELL: I don’t recall that. I don’t recall that. Maybe they did come in and change the bedcover. I don’t know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So now you are living in the efficiency apartments close to where you used to live in the dorm, on Tennessee Avenue, I believe, is where it was?
MRS. BELL: Um huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you still commuting by bus or did you have your car then?
MRS. BELL: I think I probably had the car. I can’t remember exactly when I got that car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do for recreation, fun, when you first got yourself established here in Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: I think that the thing I really appreciated was they had organized tennis leagues. I played a lot of tennis when I first came to Oak Ridge. It was easy. The people at work arranged the matches and all I had to do was appear at the Jackson Square courts, which were right there a couple of blocks away.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Had you played tennis before?
MRS. BELL: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about movies? Did you like to attend?
MRS. BELL: Movies? Well, I remember occasionally. There was a movie theater where the playhouse is now in Jackson Square. I don’t remember about the Grove.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The Center Theater?
MRS. BELL: Maybe it was. I don’t remember whether the Grove Theater was there or not, probably it was. I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The Ridge Theater was…
MRS. BELL: Ridge Theater?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Right. Where Big Ed’s Pizza is located today.
MRS. BELL: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The Grove Theater was in the Grove Shopping Center.
MRS. BELL: Right. Oh ok so it was the Ridge on down by [Big] Ed’s Pizza.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about grocery shopping? Where do you recall doing your grocery shopping?
MRS. BELL: I remember there was an A&P store someplace down there. I think I ate out most of the time. Well, I fixed breakfast for myself and maybe ate out.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the food at the Central cafeteria, was it good, bad?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember. It was ok, I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you prefer eating there versus the Mayflower restaurant?
MRS. BELL: I thought the Mayflower was maybe a step up from the Central Cafeteria. I had forgotten that name. That was it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How often did you play tennis?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember, now I just don’t remember. I would say during the summer probably once or twice a week, but probably during the winter I didn’t play much. I remember we had organized, I guess the Recreation Department at the Lab, had organized bowling too. I remember we had bowling teams during the, maybe all year around. I remember there was a bowling alley there, sort of across the street from where the Mayflower was. It was on that little area there. It is a garden now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think it was called the Central.
MRS. BELL: The Central Bowling Alley and you had to go down steps. It was sort of underneath down there. You could go bowling and again the Recreation Department at Y-12, I think it was still Y-12, it might have been ORNL because the Recreation Departments organized for you so it was easy to do. Put your name down. “I would like to be on a team.” That was it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you lived in the efficiency apartments, where did you move from there?
MRS. BELL: Oh, that was a big step up. I had got a chance to move to the Garden Apartments. I had met a lady, who is now dead, I guess while I lived in the dorm and so her name was Winnie Jones and she worked for AEC and we managed to get a Garden Apartment up on Vanderbilt. No, the first one might have been on Villanova. I have lived in several different apartments up there. It was probably Villanova.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that the block, three-story apartments?
MRS. BELL: Uh huh. Lived on the top floor.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Kind of describe what that looked like inside.
MRS. BELL: I thought those were extremely nice apartments, and just thinking back, it just seems such a step up. They were two bedrooms, fairly big bedrooms, fairly big living room and had a screened in porch, had a nice bathroom. I still think that was unusually good housing for Oak Ridge at the time. They still seem pretty nice. I have lived in one since, not for long.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In that time frame, thinking back today at that timeframe, what do you recall how the city moved? How the people moved? I guess the hustle and bustle. Was there a lot of people moving, going, coming, and things of that nature?
MRS. BELL: I don’t really recall. I guess there was. I don’t remember that as being part of the life here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you lived in the Garden Apartments were you still working at ORNL and still have the same job position?
MRS. BELL: Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you meet a man? Were you married?
MRS. BELL: No, I was single. I was single for a long time. I met, when I was working at ORNL, was about the beginning of the Thermonuclear Division. Fusion energy came into play. This was back in the, probably the early 1950’s, when we had some consultants who would come to Oak Ridge and talk. I remember, maybe the first trip I ever got sent on, from the Laboratory. We had a consultant who was a professor at Cornell. I remember being sent, I was so pleased I got sent on a business trip to Ithaca, New York, to see Dr. Smith, Lloyd Smith. That was when they were just beginning to do some theoretical work about should the Laboratory eventually get into building a thermonuclear reactor. Well, it is interesting. I remember everybody said then, “Well, fifty years from now, we’ll still be trying to get fusion energy.” Here it is 2012; we’re still trying to get fusion energy. I think there is a reactor in France now. Cadarash, I think it is. Which, maybe is really producing a little bit, or is supposed to soon.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you first went to ORNL, or X-10 as they called it, did you work with the Graphite Reactor there?
MRS. BELL: No. No, I didn’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back to your trip that you was first sent on, how did you go from Oak Ridge to? Where did you go? Kind of give me a little…
MRS. BELL: I don’t know. I must have flown from Knoxville to someplace near Ithaca. I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you were living in the Garden Apartments, did you do much grocery shopping from that area?
MRS. BELL: Some. The Garden Apartments had a nice kitchen. I did do grocery shopping.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where you went to do most of your grocery shopping?
MRS. BELL: No. I don’t remember how long that A&P store was down in Jackson Square. I don’t think there was a Kroger’s then. There was a little, seems to me, there was a little grocery store up on New York Avenue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: New York Shopping Center?
MRS. BELL: New York Shopping Center. It was sort of the rumor around town is that store has the best meat in Oak Ridge. I don’t know. That was the rumor at least.
MR. HUNNICUTT: City Market?
MRS. BELL: City Market, I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You traveled by automobile? You still had your automobile?
MRS. BELL: Uh huh. Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you met your husband when?
MRS. BELL: I met my husband at work. He was the, I guess the Assistant Director of the Thermonuclear, the Thermonuclear Division is where I ended up working. I worked in electronuclear at first, but then a few years after that the Thermonuclear Division was formed. P.R. was a physicist, an experimental physicist among other things. He did a lot of nuclear medicine work, but he was working in the experimental part of nuclear physics. It is interesting because he had an office. He and Ed Shipley had an office that was really just sort of down the hall from mine. I remember that I didn’t know him very well because I was, by that time, doing programming for the computer at ORNL. He was not into theoretical work. He was experimental but I remember, in retrospect, P.R. and his wife, then, had some really good Japanese friends that I still communicate with. They had this Japanese, it was a MD. His name was Honda and he came to study the use of radioisotopes when they had, I guess it was, well it was before ORINS, they called it something else. It was part of ORAU, when they had a division where people, M.D.s could come and be trained in the use of radioisotopes. Anyway, that is where the man from Japan was doing here. They were good friends of P.R. and his wife, and they had a party for them, for the Hondas. They had two young boys at the party. I remember going to their home for the evening party. Then about that time, it wasn’t at the plant, I was sort of unhappy. I was single and not much going on. I still think, I don’t know how lucky I was; I got a chance to go for a year in an exchange working program to England, to Culham Laboratory, which was their set-up for studying fusion energy, nuclear energy. I remember that just before I left, I left to go to England in May sometime, just before that P.R.’s wife died, rather suddenly I guess. That was a week or so before leaving for England. So I went on for England. I spent a year there. When I came back to Oak Ridge, interesting because P.R. was in charge of a lot of experimental work with thermonuclear then, and I got sent up to Framingham, Massachusetts, in the middle of winter to learn about the DEC machines. Digital equipment was the big computer producer at that time; I think it is, it is not DEC anymore. They have merged with somebody else.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year was this?
MRS. BELL: This would have been, I got back from England in 1966, I think. That is when they were building experimental devices at Y-12. It’s called DCX; DCX-1 was the big Oak Ridge fusion thermonuclear machine, DCX-1. By that time you could program and have some input into analyzing the data that came from this machine. So, I got sent up to the DEC headquarters in Framingham, Massachusetts, to learn how to program that computer. I just remember I was miserable up there. There was snow on the sidewalks and everything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you, is this how you met your husband?
MRS. BELL: Yeah, that is how I got to know him because he was one of the experimenters on that machine and I kept doing that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you referred to P.R., is that…?
MRS. BELL: Everybody called him P.R. His name was Persa Raymond, but all his friends called him P.R.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So his wife died just before you went off for England.
MRS. BELL: That’s right. It was sort of a…I thought back it was just a week or so before I left for England. Then when I came back, I started dating him. Interesting, the first date we had was the, it was a big deal then, go to the Oak Ridge Country Club dining room. I guess they don’t have much of a dining room now, but that was our first meal, Oak Ridge Country Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember a place in Oak Ridge called The Snow White Drive-In?
MRS. BELL: I remember the Snow White Drive-In. I’ve eaten at the Snow White Drive-In.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me where it was located?
MRS. BELL: It was on, it was on the Turnpike, sort of in the middle of town. The AEC had their buildings up on the hill then and it was pretty much, well it wasn’t right across the street from that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Close to the hospital?
MRS. BELL: It was close to the hospital, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the Snow White? That’s an icon in Oak Ridge.
MRS. BELL: It was an icon. It was a good place to get a hamburger, cheeseburger. I have eaten there a good bit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have curb service?
MRS. BELL: I don’t think so. I don’t remember any curb service. Snow White Drive-In… I don’t know…I don’t know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So your first date with your husband was at the Oak Ridge Country Club and you had dinner. Tell me a few more places that you visited on your dating.
MRS. BELL: Huh?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me some more places that you visited on your dating.
MRS. BELL: I remember going to Knoxville to a Chinese restaurant, which I have no idea now where it is, but he loved to eat out. He loved Oriental food. There was a little Chinese restaurant on Church Street or Clinch Street or something downtown Knoxville. I remember going there. I remember we really were going out. There was Regas Restaurant. That was the big, big place to eat in Knoxville at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back you up just a minute…
MRS. BELL: And there was the Park Hotel. The Park Hotel in Clinton was the place to go after Church on Sundays and any other time you could go there. It was the best place to eat.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back up a few years. What do you remember about when they opened the gates to Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: When they opened the gates, I was still living in the dormitory then. I remember coming out and there was a parade down, I guess that is Tennessee Avenue in front of the efficiencies down there or that was dormitory, but anyway Tennessee Avenue, and I remember there was some Hollywood celebrity. Then there was, was that the time…maybe was that the time Barkley came. It was Vice President Alvin Barkley was in the parade. That was the big thing and I remember they came down Tennessee and it was in March when the gates were open and they came down in an open air car and there was a big crowd around. Everybody welcomed them to the city.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you attend any of the speeches on Blankenship Field or the dance at the Oak Terrace in Grove Center?
MRS. BELL: I remember going to Blankenship Field a lot because every time the high school had a football game it was just a few steps away to get to Blankenship Field. I remember eating a lot at the Oak Terrace. That’s where our bowling league met. I never… never went to any dances there. I was very, very shy and lonely when I came to Oak Ridge. I remember eating at the Oak Terrace and bowling at Oak Terrace, and that’s about it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back to your husband and you dating, how long did you date before you were married?
MRS. BELL: Let’s see that was in, when I came back from England. That was in ‘65 or ‘66. He had an offer to leave Oak Ridge, on a temporary basis, and go to the…he was the manager of the Lunar Receiving Lab in Houston. That was in July of ’67. He went down there on a temporary leave from the Lab for that, to manage that Lab where the moon rocks came back. Then we were married in October of ’67, and I moved to Houston for a few years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where were you married?
MRS. BELL: In the First Methodist Church here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You recall who the minister was?
MRS. BELL: Yes. The minister, I was going to the Baptist Church at that time. I think we had two ministers. We had Ed Galloway, who was the minister of First Baptist then and I think the minister, I have a picture of it so I think the minister of First Methodist, I think his name was Hardin, but I never knew him really. Hardin, I think was his name.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Before you married your husband, let me back up for a little bit. Did you attend a particular church in Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: Yes. That was sort of interesting too. My parents were strong Baptists. My father was a Deacon in the church and so I went, when I came here to the Baptist Church for a while and I then thought, it’s not very interesting so I didn’t go to church for a while. Then they had a young minister come to that church. It was a young minister, red haired minister, who always wore a white suit. He was a wonderful preacher. His name was Madison Scott. I don’t know if he is still alive or not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the church located?
MRS. BELL: By that time, it had built at the same place where the First Baptist Church is now. I think that church was built in the fifties sometime. That is where I remember. I got interested in going to church then. He preached wonderful services.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So your husband…
MRS. BELL: It was ok. We were ok whether we went to the Methodist Church or the Baptist Church. It didn’t make much difference.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you were married, where did you live as a couple?
MRS. BELL: Where did I live?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you live after you was married?
MRS. BELL: Oh yes, when we moved, we were in Houston. We went to Houston right after our wedding. We went to Hawaii for a honeymoon and came back to Houston. We lived in a little town, Seabrook. It was near where NASA headquarters were in Houston, and came back here in… Let’s see, I have sort of forgot the question now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you got married, you moved to Houston and lived in a small town, Seabrook.
MRS. BELL: Yeah, which was really close to, that’s where a lot of people who worked for NASA lived in Seabrook. It was very near NASA headquarters there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you stay there before you came back to Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: We came back about two and half years, something like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That would be what…
MRS. BELL: It was nineteen, let’s see the first moon flight was 1969, I think, July ’69. We were there for that one and maybe one other. We moved back here in January of 1970.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, obviously when you went to Houston to live, you were no longer employed at ORNL?
MRS. BELL: That’s right. P.R. got a leave of absence, but I was lower so I just resigned. P.R. had a great, he had a vision difficultly. He never learned to drive. He really needed help. He was blind. He was legally blind and despite the fact that he could still do a lot. He read like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So did you start a family when you came back to Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: No, we never did. He had one son, who never lived with us. We always thought…well he’ll get married and we will have grandchildren, but that never happened.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When did your husband pass away?
MRS. BELL: In January of 2001.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He retired from ORNL?
MRS. BELL: He retired from ORNL, and then he went to work for, I guess it is ORINS, Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Science. It was the place where Alvin Weinberg, I don’t know if he was the Director, but he worked there. P.R. had known Alvin when they were both students at the University of Chicago. Alvin gave him the chance to work at ORINS. P.R. loved to work. He really did. He was interested in science so, you know…why not work.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you came back to Oak Ridge in 1970, did you get involved in any organizations or clubs?
MRS. BELL: I did then and I still do. The Recording for the Blind has been really important. It was important to me even before I met P.R. I had a good friend, who worked for the Math Department at ORNL. She sort of, at that time, the Recording for the Blind, which has another name now; I think it is Learning Ally or something, but anyway the Recording for the Blind had a studio upstairs at the First Presbyterian Church, and some of those people who, Tony Pleasanton was the one who read a lot to them. Some of those people knew there is a young lady who can probably read math books for us. So, they asked me if I’d come over and read those, some of those math books. So I started doing it; really, very soon after I got to Oak Ridge. Then, I don’t know, it sort of passed out of the picture and I didn’t’ read for a long time and then I was playing tennis one day. This was after we came back to Oak Ridge in the 1970’s. I was playing with Charmain Cohn. She was the wife of Waldo, who was the Music Director. She said, “Why don’t you come read for The Recording for the Blind?” So, I have been doing it ever since, you know, 1970’s sometime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Speaking of Mr. Waldo Cohn, did you ever attend any of the early Oak Ridge Symphony presentations?
MRS. BELL: Oh yes! I did. I like music. My mother was a musician, an amateur musician. I have always; I took piano lessons when I was in high school. I really have always liked music so I went to all the music programs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where they used to hold those?
MRS. BELL: The music…well let me see, where was the music programs. It was before the high school was built so… I don’t think it was.. Well, I guess maybe…maybe it was where the Playhouse is, that facility. I don’t know. Where were they?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Probably in some of the movie theaters and high school auditoriums.
MRS. BELL: Movie theaters, high school, yeah, maybe.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In your view, how has the city of Oak Ridge changed since you came here?
MRS. BELL: Oh…that is a hard one. That is a hard question to answer. I think it’s not nearly as, what do I want to say, vibrant a community as it was when I came. Of course, people were young when I came here. I always thought, you know, I was single then so I missed out on a lot of things. It seemed to me that people who lived in Oak Ridge in the 40’s, or 50’s, or 60’s, and were married and had families they were having an ideal life. That is the way it appeared to me as being a little bit outside. I don’t think they do now as much. There is a much bigger sense of community then than I think there is now. I think the best thing that has happened to Oak Ridge is ORICL, the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning. I spend a lot of time going to their classes. They’re interesting. They’re practically free. How can you beat it?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, I want to thank you for your interview and your time. It has been very enjoyable.
MRS. BELL: Well, thank you. You’re welcome.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s Note: Portions of this transcript have been edited at Mrs. Bell’s request. The corresponding video has remained unchanged.]

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ORAL HISTORY OF MOZELLE RANKIN BELL
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
October 17, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview has been scheduled through the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is October 17th, 2012, and I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of Mozelle Bell, 132 Westlook Circle, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take her oral history about her life in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Thank you, Mrs. Bell for your time to be interviewed.
MRS. BELL: You’re welcome.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Please state your name, place of birth, and date of birth, please.
MRS. BELL: My name is Mozelle Rankin Bell. I was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on February 3, 1924.
MR. HUNNICUTT: May I call you Mozelle?
MRS. BELL: Yes, that is fine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your father’s name, Mozelle?
MRS. BELL: His name was Arthur Eldridge Rankin. Everyone called him “KT” because he worked for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, MK&T.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where he was born and a little bit about his family?
MRS. BELL: Yes, if I think about it. He was born in, probably in the country in Erath County, Texas.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother? What was her maiden name?
MRS. BELL: Her maiden name was Robertson. Her name was Georgie Fay Robertson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And was she also born in Texas?
MRS. BELL: Yes, she was. She was born in, I believe in…the name Strawn comes to my mind.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how your parents met each other?
MRS. BELL: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned sisters. How many sisters do you have?
MRS. BELL: I had two older sisters, both of whom are gone now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were their names?
MRS. BELL: My older sister was Margaret Fern. My next sister was Erma Maurine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is the age difference between you and your sisters?
MRS. BELL: A lot. I think between me and Margaret was sixteen years and between me and Maurine was fourteen years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, after you were born, how long did you live at the place of your birth?
MRS. BELL: Well, not in the same house continuously, but I lived in Fort Worth—I was born in the house we lived in, in Fort Worth. There was a short period of time, when for a reason I don’t quite remember, we lived for a couple of years with my grandmother, who also lived in Fort Worth, and then we moved back to the old house where I was born.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That included your sisters?
MRS. BELL: Yes, most of the time. They were quite a bit older than me. So, after they graduated from TCU [Texas Christian University], they both got jobs teaching, and a good part of the time they were out of town. I had one…my older sister Margaret taught in a little town called Lyford, Texas. It is found in the Rio Grande Valley. That is where she began. My other sister, Maurine, I think began teaching in Quanah, Texas, which is an old Indian name. It is north and a little west of Fort Worth, I guess. Q-U-A-N-A-H. Quanah, Texas.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the first school that you attended.
MRS. BELL: Ok. I went to…they had kindergarten then. I went to kindergarten in a school named Lily B. Clayton. For some reason, I remember that name. Lily B. Clayton, I went to Kindergarten through... I guess it was sixth grade then in grade school. That was in Fort Worth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then you went to…
MRS. BELL: Went to junior high in Fort Worth, went to high school in Fort Worth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: While you were in high school, did you belong to any clubs or any organizations?
MRS. BELL: That’s hard to remember. I probably belonged to a club that had something to do with mathematics because I was interested in it in those days, years. I don’t remember. I don’t think high school clubs were very important then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you consider yourself a good student?
MRS. BELL: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you know what you wanted to do with your life after you graduated or when you were a senior, or before?
MRS. BELL: Not really, but those were the days women were supposed to graduate and if they went to college, they got a job teaching because that was about all you could do.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what did you do?
MRS. BELL: Well, I went to TCU, which was in Fort Worth. That’s maybe better known now. The football team has gotten better. Texas Christian University. I lived at home. I was on the bus line to go to TCU. Let’s see…what was I interested in? Well, I was interested in mathematics because I had been good in math in high school. I worked part of the time. When I was going to TCU, they had student assistants in the office of the department to help the other students do their homework. I did that in the math department.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you graduated from high school and went to TCU. Did you graduate with a teacher’s degree?
MRS. BELL: No. I think because I really didn’t want to teach that I never took any education courses. So, I had a degree in… I might have had a double major in math and chemistry, but I didn’t want to teach. I graduated, well, I went to school during World War II essentially. I entered TCU in the fall of 1941, before December 7, 1941. So that really changed everything about college life then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When your mother was raising her family, did she ever work?
MRS. BELL: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Stay at home mom?
MRS. BELL: Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your father was the only one that worked?
MRS. BELL: Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you got out of college and then… Tell me a little bit more of what happened then.
MRS. BELL: When I graduated from college, I got an offer to be, I guess you call it student assistant or something, at Ohio State.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you work there?
MRS. BELL: I worked there…I got a Master’s degree from there and a little bit more. I was there maybe four years, something like that. I remember a recruiter from Oak Ridge came to interview students. Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the recruiter asked?
MRS. BELL: I really don’t recall what he asked, but I didn’t like the winters in Columbus and he said, “Oh, Tennessee that is south”. When I was living in Columbus, I had a friend, I’ve have lost track of now, who was from Chattanooga. I thought, well that is near Chattanooga and I can see her. I was happy to come back south.
MR. HUNNICUTT: At that time, did you have an automobile?
MRS. BELL: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you travel?
MRS. BELL: By railroad. My father worked for the railroad and I got passes on the railroad.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After the gentleman from Oak Ridge came and you got to thinking about maybe coming to Oak Ridge, how did you pursue that?
MRS. BELL: I don’t know that I did anything. They made me an offer to come and work here and I said, “Yes”.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what was the job offer?
MRS. BELL: I was trying to remember that. I think the title of the job was probably physicist because they didn’t have mathematicians in 1948. I think it was physicist.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You decided to come to Oak Ridge and take this job?
MRS. BELL: Um huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, how did you? You got on the train I presume and you went from…
MRS. BELL: I went from Fort Worth, I guess I had gone home to Fort Worth and when I took the job I got on the train in Fort Worth and ended up in Knoxville at the train depot over there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what instructions you were given on how to get to Oak Ridge from Knoxville?
MRS. BELL: I remember that they told me they had a room reserved in a hotel in Knoxville. I think it was the Andrew Johnson, but I am not sure about that. That is where they sort of put up people who were coming to go to work so I spent the first night in the Andrew Johnson and then the next day, I remember, they came in a car or something and took me out. They took me to Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you just had a suitcase in hand?
MRS. BELL: That’s about what it was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They brought a car from Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: They brought some kind of car but, I don’t remember what kind.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall when you came to Oak Ridge where you entered the city?
MRS. BELL: Well the gates were closed then and so…no, I don’t remember which gate. It seems to me…I really don’t remember which gate. It is, was, Elza but I don’t think we came in Elza. I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you say in the city the gates were closed, tell me a little bit about what you mean by that.
MRS. BELL: You had to have a pass. Everyone had to have a pass to get into Oak Ridge at that time. I suppose they brought me a temporary pass when they came to pick me to take me here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the date when that was?
MRS. BELL: I remember pretty closely. It was September. I’m not sure…September 26 or 28, 1948.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when they met you at the gate, and they put you in the car, where did you go from the gate entrance?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember. I think we went to Y-12 then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: But you went straight to the job site first?
MRS. BELL: It seems to me we did, but I am not sure. Maybe they said, “Ok, we have reserved a room for you in Bayonne Hall.” I only spent that one night in Knoxville and then I came back.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when you got to the gate, they gave you badge?
MRS. BELL: A pass.
MR. HUNNICUTT: A pass and escorted you to the job site. Do you recall what happened at the job site on that particular first day?
MRS. BELL: I remember...it is sort of mixed up in my mind…I remember being interviewed for this job by Ed Shipley. I can’t remember whether this was before, seems to me that it should have been before I was hired. I don’t really have the sequence of events there. I remember being interviewed by him.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how you got from the job site to your room--to where you were going to live?
MRS. BELL: On the bus. We rode the bus from Bus Terminal Road.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was Baymont Hall?
MRS. BELL: It was Bayonne.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bayonne. That was a dormitory?
MRS. BELL: It was a dormitory. It is where that tall building is in Jackson square now. The dormitories were sort of U shaped…one here, one here, and Bayonne here. It was the crossbar on the U.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe your dormitory room.
MRS. BELL: Small. There is still one or two…there is an old dormitory here now out on the east side of town, close to the Glenwood Church, I guess is out there. People, maybe the church does it, I think. Anyway, you can donate articles, beds, articles of furniture and people can go in there and if they are looking for something, I was looking for a wheelchair for my husband, I think. I went there and went into that dormitory and I remembered all these dormitories were so small.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So describe what was in the room.
MRS. BELL: It seems to me they had several rooms and maybe bedding and maybe they had some single beds. It was sort of a junk room, really. You had to look through for what you were…
MR. HUNNICUTT: Like a typical dormitory would be at the college?
MRS. BELL: Oh, you mean my dormitory room?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes, what your dormitory room?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember much about it. It was a bed, and I think the bathroom was down the hall.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a roommate?
MRS. BELL: No. I think they were just single. Seems to me, those rooms were just for one person. I am not sure.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you had to go down the hall to use the bathroom and the shower?
MRS. BELL: I think that is right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about was the room warm in the winter time and hot in the summer time?
MRS. BELL: Yes. I don’t remember being uncomfortable. I don’t remember the temperature being a problem, so I guess the place was heated well enough in the winter time. I had not been used to air conditioning. I remember, this is interesting. Y-12 did not have any air conditioning then. When I started working in ’48, no air conditioning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Air conditioning then might have been a rare thing in those days.
MRS. BELL: I guess it was. I had grown up in Texas and I was used to the weather being hot and it didn’t bother me too much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you lived in the dormitory, where did you go for your meals?
MRS. BELL: That is interesting. There was a cafeteria right across the street. I don’t remember its name. Central probably, it was on Central Avenue. Central Cafeteria, and then before too long there was the Mayflower, which was across the street from the, well there was a dormitory here and there was the efficiency apartments and across the street was a restaurant. It was the Mayflower for a long time. It is a parking lot now, I think.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that in the Townsite area?
MRS. BELL: It was in the Townsite.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What we call Jackson Square now?
MRS. BELL: It was in Jackson Square, probably across the street from what you would call Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that the main source of your eating?
MRS. BELL: That was it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Those two facilities?
MRS. BELL: That was it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you rode the bus back and forth to work each day?
MRS. BELL: Um huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you work shift work?
MRS. BELL: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were your hours? Do you remember what time you were supposed to be at work?
MRS. BELL: No, I don’t know. Seems to me it was eight to four thirty, something like that. I never worked shift.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about riding the bus. Was it crowded?
MRS. BELL: It was crowded, always. But, well you know, nobody thought that was anything unusual. That is just the way people got around Oak Ridge those days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to pay a fare to ride the bus?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember. It must have been pretty minimal. I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ride the bus to go to other parts of the town, or did you walk, or did you have someone that had a car by any chance?
MRS. BELL: I think I probably walked if I went any place. I can’t remember when but sometime early in the time that I was in Oak Ridge, I managed to get a car. I had a cousin who had an auto dealership in Midland, Texas, and he managed to get me a Chevy and somehow got that car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you still living in the dorm when you got your car?
MRS. BELL: I don’t know. I think I might have upgraded to the efficiency apartments, which you know next door to the dormitory. I can’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall mud throughout the city?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember a lot of mud. I have heard people, my friends talk about that there was a lot of mud here, but I don’t remember that. I guess there was, but I don’t recall that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So after you lived in the dormitory, where did you go after that?
MRS. BELL: I got this upgrade to the efficiency apartments. Which they were one room too but they had one room and a bathroom and little place you could cook, I guess, a sink anyway. They were small.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How were you able to do that?
MRS. BELL: I guess at that time, you sort of put in to… who was the housing company? I don’t remember if it was… or R.L. Moore or something like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Roane-Anderson?
MRS. BELL: Roane Anderson was the housing company and maybe you just put in a request that you would like to move when something else became available.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Other than your personal belongings you brought in your suitcase, is that all you moved from the dormitory?
MRS. BELL: That’s all. That’s all.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to pay rent at the particular time?
MRS. BELL: I guess I did. I don’t remember, but I surely did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I have heard that people that lived in the dorms had maid service. Do you recall that?
MRS. BELL: I don’t recall that. I don’t recall that. Maybe they did come in and change the bedcover. I don’t know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So now you are living in the efficiency apartments close to where you used to live in the dorm, on Tennessee Avenue, I believe, is where it was?
MRS. BELL: Um huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you still commuting by bus or did you have your car then?
MRS. BELL: I think I probably had the car. I can’t remember exactly when I got that car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do for recreation, fun, when you first got yourself established here in Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: I think that the thing I really appreciated was they had organized tennis leagues. I played a lot of tennis when I first came to Oak Ridge. It was easy. The people at work arranged the matches and all I had to do was appear at the Jackson Square courts, which were right there a couple of blocks away.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Had you played tennis before?
MRS. BELL: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about movies? Did you like to attend?
MRS. BELL: Movies? Well, I remember occasionally. There was a movie theater where the playhouse is now in Jackson Square. I don’t remember about the Grove.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The Center Theater?
MRS. BELL: Maybe it was. I don’t remember whether the Grove Theater was there or not, probably it was. I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The Ridge Theater was…
MRS. BELL: Ridge Theater?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Right. Where Big Ed’s Pizza is located today.
MRS. BELL: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The Grove Theater was in the Grove Shopping Center.
MRS. BELL: Right. Oh ok so it was the Ridge on down by [Big] Ed’s Pizza.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about grocery shopping? Where do you recall doing your grocery shopping?
MRS. BELL: I remember there was an A&P store someplace down there. I think I ate out most of the time. Well, I fixed breakfast for myself and maybe ate out.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the food at the Central cafeteria, was it good, bad?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember. It was ok, I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you prefer eating there versus the Mayflower restaurant?
MRS. BELL: I thought the Mayflower was maybe a step up from the Central Cafeteria. I had forgotten that name. That was it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How often did you play tennis?
MRS. BELL: I don’t remember, now I just don’t remember. I would say during the summer probably once or twice a week, but probably during the winter I didn’t play much. I remember we had organized, I guess the Recreation Department at the Lab, had organized bowling too. I remember we had bowling teams during the, maybe all year around. I remember there was a bowling alley there, sort of across the street from where the Mayflower was. It was on that little area there. It is a garden now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think it was called the Central.
MRS. BELL: The Central Bowling Alley and you had to go down steps. It was sort of underneath down there. You could go bowling and again the Recreation Department at Y-12, I think it was still Y-12, it might have been ORNL because the Recreation Departments organized for you so it was easy to do. Put your name down. “I would like to be on a team.” That was it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you lived in the efficiency apartments, where did you move from there?
MRS. BELL: Oh, that was a big step up. I had got a chance to move to the Garden Apartments. I had met a lady, who is now dead, I guess while I lived in the dorm and so her name was Winnie Jones and she worked for AEC and we managed to get a Garden Apartment up on Vanderbilt. No, the first one might have been on Villanova. I have lived in several different apartments up there. It was probably Villanova.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that the block, three-story apartments?
MRS. BELL: Uh huh. Lived on the top floor.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Kind of describe what that looked like inside.
MRS. BELL: I thought those were extremely nice apartments, and just thinking back, it just seems such a step up. They were two bedrooms, fairly big bedrooms, fairly big living room and had a screened in porch, had a nice bathroom. I still think that was unusually good housing for Oak Ridge at the time. They still seem pretty nice. I have lived in one since, not for long.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In that time frame, thinking back today at that timeframe, what do you recall how the city moved? How the people moved? I guess the hustle and bustle. Was there a lot of people moving, going, coming, and things of that nature?
MRS. BELL: I don’t really recall. I guess there was. I don’t remember that as being part of the life here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you lived in the Garden Apartments were you still working at ORNL and still have the same job position?
MRS. BELL: Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you meet a man? Were you married?
MRS. BELL: No, I was single. I was single for a long time. I met, when I was working at ORNL, was about the beginning of the Thermonuclear Division. Fusion energy came into play. This was back in the, probably the early 1950’s, when we had some consultants who would come to Oak Ridge and talk. I remember, maybe the first trip I ever got sent on, from the Laboratory. We had a consultant who was a professor at Cornell. I remember being sent, I was so pleased I got sent on a business trip to Ithaca, New York, to see Dr. Smith, Lloyd Smith. That was when they were just beginning to do some theoretical work about should the Laboratory eventually get into building a thermonuclear reactor. Well, it is interesting. I remember everybody said then, “Well, fifty years from now, we’ll still be trying to get fusion energy.” Here it is 2012; we’re still trying to get fusion energy. I think there is a reactor in France now. Cadarash, I think it is. Which, maybe is really producing a little bit, or is supposed to soon.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you first went to ORNL, or X-10 as they called it, did you work with the Graphite Reactor there?
MRS. BELL: No. No, I didn’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back to your trip that you was first sent on, how did you go from Oak Ridge to? Where did you go? Kind of give me a little…
MRS. BELL: I don’t know. I must have flown from Knoxville to someplace near Ithaca. I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you were living in the Garden Apartments, did you do much grocery shopping from that area?
MRS. BELL: Some. The Garden Apartments had a nice kitchen. I did do grocery shopping.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where you went to do most of your grocery shopping?
MRS. BELL: No. I don’t remember how long that A&P store was down in Jackson Square. I don’t think there was a Kroger’s then. There was a little, seems to me, there was a little grocery store up on New York Avenue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: New York Shopping Center?
MRS. BELL: New York Shopping Center. It was sort of the rumor around town is that store has the best meat in Oak Ridge. I don’t know. That was the rumor at least.
MR. HUNNICUTT: City Market?
MRS. BELL: City Market, I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You traveled by automobile? You still had your automobile?
MRS. BELL: Uh huh. Uh huh.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you met your husband when?
MRS. BELL: I met my husband at work. He was the, I guess the Assistant Director of the Thermonuclear, the Thermonuclear Division is where I ended up working. I worked in electronuclear at first, but then a few years after that the Thermonuclear Division was formed. P.R. was a physicist, an experimental physicist among other things. He did a lot of nuclear medicine work, but he was working in the experimental part of nuclear physics. It is interesting because he had an office. He and Ed Shipley had an office that was really just sort of down the hall from mine. I remember that I didn’t know him very well because I was, by that time, doing programming for the computer at ORNL. He was not into theoretical work. He was experimental but I remember, in retrospect, P.R. and his wife, then, had some really good Japanese friends that I still communicate with. They had this Japanese, it was a MD. His name was Honda and he came to study the use of radioisotopes when they had, I guess it was, well it was before ORINS, they called it something else. It was part of ORAU, when they had a division where people, M.D.s could come and be trained in the use of radioisotopes. Anyway, that is where the man from Japan was doing here. They were good friends of P.R. and his wife, and they had a party for them, for the Hondas. They had two young boys at the party. I remember going to their home for the evening party. Then about that time, it wasn’t at the plant, I was sort of unhappy. I was single and not much going on. I still think, I don’t know how lucky I was; I got a chance to go for a year in an exchange working program to England, to Culham Laboratory, which was their set-up for studying fusion energy, nuclear energy. I remember that just before I left, I left to go to England in May sometime, just before that P.R.’s wife died, rather suddenly I guess. That was a week or so before leaving for England. So I went on for England. I spent a year there. When I came back to Oak Ridge, interesting because P.R. was in charge of a lot of experimental work with thermonuclear then, and I got sent up to Framingham, Massachusetts, in the middle of winter to learn about the DEC machines. Digital equipment was the big computer producer at that time; I think it is, it is not DEC anymore. They have merged with somebody else.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year was this?
MRS. BELL: This would have been, I got back from England in 1966, I think. That is when they were building experimental devices at Y-12. It’s called DCX; DCX-1 was the big Oak Ridge fusion thermonuclear machine, DCX-1. By that time you could program and have some input into analyzing the data that came from this machine. So, I got sent up to the DEC headquarters in Framingham, Massachusetts, to learn how to program that computer. I just remember I was miserable up there. There was snow on the sidewalks and everything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you, is this how you met your husband?
MRS. BELL: Yeah, that is how I got to know him because he was one of the experimenters on that machine and I kept doing that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you referred to P.R., is that…?
MRS. BELL: Everybody called him P.R. His name was Persa Raymond, but all his friends called him P.R.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So his wife died just before you went off for England.
MRS. BELL: That’s right. It was sort of a…I thought back it was just a week or so before I left for England. Then when I came back, I started dating him. Interesting, the first date we had was the, it was a big deal then, go to the Oak Ridge Country Club dining room. I guess they don’t have much of a dining room now, but that was our first meal, Oak Ridge Country Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember a place in Oak Ridge called The Snow White Drive-In?
MRS. BELL: I remember the Snow White Drive-In. I’ve eaten at the Snow White Drive-In.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me where it was located?
MRS. BELL: It was on, it was on the Turnpike, sort of in the middle of town. The AEC had their buildings up on the hill then and it was pretty much, well it wasn’t right across the street from that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Close to the hospital?
MRS. BELL: It was close to the hospital, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the Snow White? That’s an icon in Oak Ridge.
MRS. BELL: It was an icon. It was a good place to get a hamburger, cheeseburger. I have eaten there a good bit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have curb service?
MRS. BELL: I don’t think so. I don’t remember any curb service. Snow White Drive-In… I don’t know…I don’t know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So your first date with your husband was at the Oak Ridge Country Club and you had dinner. Tell me a few more places that you visited on your dating.
MRS. BELL: Huh?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me some more places that you visited on your dating.
MRS. BELL: I remember going to Knoxville to a Chinese restaurant, which I have no idea now where it is, but he loved to eat out. He loved Oriental food. There was a little Chinese restaurant on Church Street or Clinch Street or something downtown Knoxville. I remember going there. I remember we really were going out. There was Regas Restaurant. That was the big, big place to eat in Knoxville at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back you up just a minute…
MRS. BELL: And there was the Park Hotel. The Park Hotel in Clinton was the place to go after Church on Sundays and any other time you could go there. It was the best place to eat.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back up a few years. What do you remember about when they opened the gates to Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: When they opened the gates, I was still living in the dormitory then. I remember coming out and there was a parade down, I guess that is Tennessee Avenue in front of the efficiencies down there or that was dormitory, but anyway Tennessee Avenue, and I remember there was some Hollywood celebrity. Then there was, was that the time…maybe was that the time Barkley came. It was Vice President Alvin Barkley was in the parade. That was the big thing and I remember they came down Tennessee and it was in March when the gates were open and they came down in an open air car and there was a big crowd around. Everybody welcomed them to the city.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you attend any of the speeches on Blankenship Field or the dance at the Oak Terrace in Grove Center?
MRS. BELL: I remember going to Blankenship Field a lot because every time the high school had a football game it was just a few steps away to get to Blankenship Field. I remember eating a lot at the Oak Terrace. That’s where our bowling league met. I never… never went to any dances there. I was very, very shy and lonely when I came to Oak Ridge. I remember eating at the Oak Terrace and bowling at Oak Terrace, and that’s about it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back to your husband and you dating, how long did you date before you were married?
MRS. BELL: Let’s see that was in, when I came back from England. That was in ‘65 or ‘66. He had an offer to leave Oak Ridge, on a temporary basis, and go to the…he was the manager of the Lunar Receiving Lab in Houston. That was in July of ’67. He went down there on a temporary leave from the Lab for that, to manage that Lab where the moon rocks came back. Then we were married in October of ’67, and I moved to Houston for a few years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where were you married?
MRS. BELL: In the First Methodist Church here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You recall who the minister was?
MRS. BELL: Yes. The minister, I was going to the Baptist Church at that time. I think we had two ministers. We had Ed Galloway, who was the minister of First Baptist then and I think the minister, I have a picture of it so I think the minister of First Methodist, I think his name was Hardin, but I never knew him really. Hardin, I think was his name.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Before you married your husband, let me back up for a little bit. Did you attend a particular church in Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: Yes. That was sort of interesting too. My parents were strong Baptists. My father was a Deacon in the church and so I went, when I came here to the Baptist Church for a while and I then thought, it’s not very interesting so I didn’t go to church for a while. Then they had a young minister come to that church. It was a young minister, red haired minister, who always wore a white suit. He was a wonderful preacher. His name was Madison Scott. I don’t know if he is still alive or not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the church located?
MRS. BELL: By that time, it had built at the same place where the First Baptist Church is now. I think that church was built in the fifties sometime. That is where I remember. I got interested in going to church then. He preached wonderful services.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So your husband…
MRS. BELL: It was ok. We were ok whether we went to the Methodist Church or the Baptist Church. It didn’t make much difference.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you were married, where did you live as a couple?
MRS. BELL: Where did I live?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you live after you was married?
MRS. BELL: Oh yes, when we moved, we were in Houston. We went to Houston right after our wedding. We went to Hawaii for a honeymoon and came back to Houston. We lived in a little town, Seabrook. It was near where NASA headquarters were in Houston, and came back here in… Let’s see, I have sort of forgot the question now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you got married, you moved to Houston and lived in a small town, Seabrook.
MRS. BELL: Yeah, which was really close to, that’s where a lot of people who worked for NASA lived in Seabrook. It was very near NASA headquarters there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you stay there before you came back to Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: We came back about two and half years, something like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That would be what…
MRS. BELL: It was nineteen, let’s see the first moon flight was 1969, I think, July ’69. We were there for that one and maybe one other. We moved back here in January of 1970.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, obviously when you went to Houston to live, you were no longer employed at ORNL?
MRS. BELL: That’s right. P.R. got a leave of absence, but I was lower so I just resigned. P.R. had a great, he had a vision difficultly. He never learned to drive. He really needed help. He was blind. He was legally blind and despite the fact that he could still do a lot. He read like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So did you start a family when you came back to Oak Ridge?
MRS. BELL: No, we never did. He had one son, who never lived with us. We always thought…well he’ll get married and we will have grandchildren, but that never happened.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When did your husband pass away?
MRS. BELL: In January of 2001.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He retired from ORNL?
MRS. BELL: He retired from ORNL, and then he went to work for, I guess it is ORINS, Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Science. It was the place where Alvin Weinberg, I don’t know if he was the Director, but he worked there. P.R. had known Alvin when they were both students at the University of Chicago. Alvin gave him the chance to work at ORINS. P.R. loved to work. He really did. He was interested in science so, you know…why not work.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you came back to Oak Ridge in 1970, did you get involved in any organizations or clubs?
MRS. BELL: I did then and I still do. The Recording for the Blind has been really important. It was important to me even before I met P.R. I had a good friend, who worked for the Math Department at ORNL. She sort of, at that time, the Recording for the Blind, which has another name now; I think it is Learning Ally or something, but anyway the Recording for the Blind had a studio upstairs at the First Presbyterian Church, and some of those people who, Tony Pleasanton was the one who read a lot to them. Some of those people knew there is a young lady who can probably read math books for us. So, they asked me if I’d come over and read those, some of those math books. So I started doing it; really, very soon after I got to Oak Ridge. Then, I don’t know, it sort of passed out of the picture and I didn’t’ read for a long time and then I was playing tennis one day. This was after we came back to Oak Ridge in the 1970’s. I was playing with Charmain Cohn. She was the wife of Waldo, who was the Music Director. She said, “Why don’t you come read for The Recording for the Blind?” So, I have been doing it ever since, you know, 1970’s sometime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Speaking of Mr. Waldo Cohn, did you ever attend any of the early Oak Ridge Symphony presentations?
MRS. BELL: Oh yes! I did. I like music. My mother was a musician, an amateur musician. I have always; I took piano lessons when I was in high school. I really have always liked music so I went to all the music programs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where they used to hold those?
MRS. BELL: The music…well let me see, where was the music programs. It was before the high school was built so… I don’t think it was.. Well, I guess maybe…maybe it was where the Playhouse is, that facility. I don’t know. Where were they?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Probably in some of the movie theaters and high school auditoriums.
MRS. BELL: Movie theaters, high school, yeah, maybe.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In your view, how has the city of Oak Ridge changed since you came here?
MRS. BELL: Oh…that is a hard one. That is a hard question to answer. I think it’s not nearly as, what do I want to say, vibrant a community as it was when I came. Of course, people were young when I came here. I always thought, you know, I was single then so I missed out on a lot of things. It seemed to me that people who lived in Oak Ridge in the 40’s, or 50’s, or 60’s, and were married and had families they were having an ideal life. That is the way it appeared to me as being a little bit outside. I don’t think they do now as much. There is a much bigger sense of community then than I think there is now. I think the best thing that has happened to Oak Ridge is ORICL, the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning. I spend a lot of time going to their classes. They’re interesting. They’re practically free. How can you beat it?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, I want to thank you for your interview and your time. It has been very enjoyable.
MRS. BELL: Well, thank you. You’re welcome.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s Note: Portions of this transcript have been edited at Mrs. Bell’s request. The corresponding video has remained unchanged.]